Stella slid Matt a look through thickly mascaraed eyelashes, and took in his Eye Candy T-shirt, his hand at her back, and the possessive tilt of his body as Eve slid Saturday night’s take through the window. “Who’s your friend, Eve?”
“Stella, meet Chad,” she said, giving Matt’s arm a possessive little pat. Her every move screamed boyfriend, the way she leaned into his body, let the curve of her hip nestle into his, and Matt felt an odd shift in his consciousness, like one of those posters for sale at the mall, the kind that if you stared at long enough, you saw something else in the colors and shapes. Old woman, young woman. Undersea garden or dolphin. Eve as a community-oriented partner in the investigation or Eve as his lover.
Eve as his.
“Stella and I went to high school together,” Eve said, snapping him back into reality. “Chad’s working for me at Eye Candy.”
Her gaze slid over Matt as she double-checked the deposit. “Must be nice to be the boss. You from around here, Chad?”
“L.A.,” he said, neither discouraging, nor encouraging, just enough to answer the question.
Stella ran the money through the machines and slid Eve a deposit slip. “I keep meaning to come by, but getting George to watch the kids is like pulling teeth,” she said as Eve picked up a pen. It spun from her fingers, the ball-chain slithering against the wooden counter.
“I’m clumsy today,” Eve said with a bright, false laugh. Matt dropped a hand to her hip and stroked his thumb over the soft curve. Her shoulders relaxed. She picked up the pen again, signed the slip, the movements casual and precise. Normal.
She calms down when you touch her. Touch her a lot. To keep her calm.
“You won’t believe what I heard. Guess who’s back in town?”
“Who?”
Arms folded on the counter, Stella leaned into the window like she was sharing state secrets. “Lyle. Murphy. Can you believe it?”
“I saw him last week,” Eve said like it was no big deal. Good girl, Matt thought. Calm, collected, laying the framework for any sightings with Lyle or his band of merry thugs and dealers.
“He had the total hots for you in high school,” Stella recalled.
“We were friends! Just friends,” Eve said. “My dad and Lyle’s dad go way back.”
“Honey, you are so blind,” Stella said, then turned to Matt. “Every guy in the school wanted to go out with Eve, but after what happened to Nate, none of them dared. You know Caleb?”
“We’ve met,” Matt said noncommittally, felt Eve swallow a laugh.
“I bet,” Stella said as she retrieved the deposit slip from Eve. “Be good, you two.”
“You think she’ll talk?” Matt said as they left the bank. Part of the plan was to generate as much buzz as they could about Eve and her new boyfriend and hope the gossip got back to Lyle.
“She’s probably group texting everyone we know from high school right now,” Eve said. “Why L.A.?”
He guided her down the empty sidewalk leading to the bank’s front door. “It’s big enough that if someone says “Do you know my aunt Millie?” I can easily say no, but I was stationed at Fort Irwin, so I know the city well enough to handle most conversations,” he said.
They rounded the railing protecting the landscaping from people cutting across the grass to the parking lot, and Eve reached for his hand as she scoped out the storefronts across the street. Lancaster Savings and Loan was located on a prime strip of the East Side, in the middle of local shops and restaurants. It was the middle of the afternoon, so gauging traffic from the lunch crowd wasn’t easy, but a few people sat at tables at the front of the new sandwich and coffee shop across the street, and the lot on the corner that provided free parking for shops along Thirteenth Street was better than half full.
A blue Escalade emerged from the parking lot and pulled into an on-street parking space across from the bank. Lyle Murphy got out.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Matt felt Eve stiffen next to him. He clasped her hand, gave it a squeeze meant to both soothe and warn her to stay cool. “I see him,” he said in an undertone. “Let’s make sure he sees us. Look around. Talk to me about the businesses like I’m new in town and you’re showing me around.”
“Good lunch traffic,” she said, only the slightest hint of a tremor in her voice. “Two Slices is a new soup and sandwich place. They’ve been open for a month and got a really good write-up in the paper so Henry’s seeing quite a bit of downtown lunch traffic. I don’t think Cindy’s Cinful Sweets will last if the redevelopment effort collapses, but if we get the business park she might hold on. What’s he doing?”
“He’s staring at you.”